roaming
writer: Mariko Tamaki
Illustrator: Gillian Tamaki
Publisher: Sweepstakes and Quarterly Magazine
Whether it’s your first time here or you’re just going about your day-to-day life, New York can be overwhelming. You can feel the city slowly but surely pulling you, your friends, your relationships – everything apart. For a city with a large population, New York does need a lot of people, tourists or not. The City is asking people to unite, cross paths and keep moving forward. I have been there. Saw it. have you been there? I went to inspect the university in late October 2007. It was the first time I’d ever been alone—the other time was a baptism in Queens. I was equally at a loss.
For Zoe, Danny, and Danny’s dorm roommate Fiona, New York City in 2009 isn’t all that different. Or rather, a New York City tour isn’t all that different. Airport, get a MetroCard, try to find a bathroom at Barnes & Noble, a small hotel near the 24-hour Duane Reade, plan to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My feet hurt from walking.
Fortunately, roaming It’s a kickback to the old school rules. roaming It’s a pocket full of memories Mariko Tamaki and Gillian Tamaki Blurring the edges of semi-autobiographical confessional and love letter to New York. Tamaki Cousins takes us back to the days when cell phone minutes were limited, so sometimes the easiest way to increase your phone bill was to let your phone roam.
In the early days, most anecdotes expressed disdain for misogynists and how they permeated every aspect of New York life, from airport benches to professors back home. The Tamakis added or removed subjects such as souvenirs and vacation photos and imbued them with meaning within the space on the page—a “first trip to New York.” You make plans and they change. As such, these narrative techniques are subtly introduced and subtly eliminated.It is this capriciousness that reflects the unpredictability of things roaming Characters and travel vacation as a whole.
From Zoe admitting she can’t make it, to Danny realizing there are only so many minutes in the day, to Fiona confusing maturity with calmness and confidence, the visit started as a wish list but ended for some Too soon, not soon enough for everyone else. These young women discovered that New York was different than they had imagined. How different a painting looks when seen close up and when seen from a distance.
Jillian Tamaki’s ligne claire technique fills the pages with dotted spreads that look realistic from a distance, but look unpolished and rushed up close. This contrast resonates with the twists and turns in our holiday friends’ relationships, echoed in their emotional and thematic arcs. Dot eyes go a long way in refocusing appreciation on the lines of a character’s performance art, so subtle expressions are easier to read. Like picking up snippets of every conversation you pass in New York, which is sparse but impactful, much of the content is devoted to utter silence, wide spread, allowing the image to become an atmosphere. This depiction of New York City, with its quietness and its people being loudmouths, feels too real to be fictional.
When I went to New York, it was autumn. My uncle in New Jersey took me to Chinatown and we had egg drop soup and lemon chicken. They have crunchy wontons that you can dip in sweet and spicy sauce! When I went to the Met, it rained and we fell asleep in the colonists exhibit, so the little pin they give you fell off my hoodie.Theater kids from Florida, we went to see Les Miserables. I was shocked that this was Lea Salonga’s last night. It feels right to see another Filipino succeed at this point in my life. Mind you, my visit to New York wasn’t decorated with strokes of black, cream, blue and peach. The streets I walked on didn’t have the thick, uniform gutters that often staggered the 4:3 ratio steps into a relaxing experience.
My text balloons do not exist behind foreground elements, in the world, to increase immersion. My whisper doesn’t have a curly little tail. My sentences don’t have mixed cases. When I raise my volume, I don’t use all caps. Oh my god, except for one big tail-end mess in the climactic moment. roaming It didn’t sound like me, it didn’t sound like me, but in hindsight, our trips were so similar. I, like the recurring figures of ants, pigeons, and passengers, felt part of a migratory pattern of people, drifting in, finding their way, and then flying home.
Cousin Tamaki kicks off this brutally honest kickback through Zoe Reading Canterbury Fables (story, a story about conflicting narratives with other walks of life. That’s New York. Or at least, that’s how I remember it when I went. Maybe your trip is different. Maybe it’s just another tourist trap. Maybe it feels better.
Or maybe, it feels like roaming.
Roaming is now supported.
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